ANTTI OIKARINENForm and Meaning 8.9.2018 – 7.10.2018
ANTTI OIKARINEN
I've been working on subjects related to representation since 2010. I've been focusing on how my works could represent other – either imaginary or possible – works of art or artistic deeds. I have used illusion as material for my pieces, I have made works that have looked like other works; ones that I wouldn't necessarily make myself but that someone, an almost-me, could make. I've thought that this way a work is not what it looks like, but rather suggests that this is how it could be. This idea has opened up interesting insights into pondering and working on the imperatives of the visual world. I've got to look at the construction of meanings in a work of art as if I was outside of myself.
In my new exhibition, the line plays the leading role. The technique I've used in all of these works is coloured pencil on paper. The line is, therefore, the basic element of each work (especially if a point is defined as a line the length of its width). Occasionally, the line is the actual subject of a work. When I was putting the exhibition together, I was thinking about the formation of meaning, and I tried to move in the margins of meaning and meaninglessness. It is interesting to note how every deed and choice seems to produce at least a feel of a certain meaning.
The title of the exhibition, Form and Meaning, could also be an umbrella title for my previous three solo exhibitions. These exhibitions were Sculptures at Forum Box (2012), Exhibition at Galleria Heino (2014) and Paintings at Gösta, the Serlachius Museum (2017). Following this logic, the current exhibition could be entitled Drawings, and the four exhibitions would be independent elements of an entirety called Form and Meaning.
Antti Oikarinen
Meeting with the artist on Sunday 30th of September from 1 pm to 3 pm. Welcome!